Molly's Miracle

This is Molly.

Molly is almost 16 years old and is a dingy-looking, part-white, part-tan, part-Siamese, outdoor cat that Tess got for her 5th birthday.  As a kitten, Molly was a super cute ball of fur.  Now she is a bigger ball of fur--or more specifically--lots of balls of fur matted together.

Recently, Molly appeared to be on death’s doorstep so I brought her into the house and put her into hospice.

The first days in animal hospice, Molly drank massive amounts of water, ate very little food, and slept most of the time.  She seemed unusually unsteady, her back legs wobbled when she walked, and her mouth and nose were a stained a weird brown color.  And she was kind of disgusting; every time she sneezed--which was excessively often--slime poured out of her nose (in fact, she kind of oozed slime out of her face in those first days--think Gary the snail on Sponge Bob). Being relatively sure that these were Molly’s last days, we (meaning me, since the children came home each day and emotionlessly asked, “Is Molly dead yet?”) tried to provide her with palliative care; furminating her dirty white coat as often as possible and saying comforting and entirely untrue things to her (like, "Aren't you a pretty kitty"). That first week, Molly did nothing but slowly creep out of her bed to drink water, eat a little food, or use the litter box, and then she would painstakingly creep back in and fall asleep. Then one day, maybe day eight in kitty hospice, I came home from work and Molly was missing. Her basket was empty and I was sure she had wandered off to hide herself under a bed and die with dignity.  But, just as I was taking my coat off, feeling a bit sentimental about the time she spent with us (and remembering the time she gave up several of her lives as a kitten when she almost gotten eaten by a dog), Molly jogged through the living room as if she had not a care in the world, holding her tail high.  Obviously, she must have been feeling better and decided to take a field trip to Tess’ room to lounge upon the green chair—the green chair which requires jumping to lie upon. Molly had not been jumping previously.  Molly had barely been walking. When she did walk, it was this wobbly, uncoordinated sort of gait that made her look like she was drunk. 

So now (probably week 4 in unnecessary hospice), with her remarkable transformation, and her impenetrable defense of what she deems “her room” when the other cats come inside, I am beginning to wonder if Molly was just recovering from a nasty hangover for that first week.  Maybe that’s why she was so thirsty when I first brought her in (alcohol is a diuretic) and why her face was stained brown (The Mexican Tequila in the pantry seems to have been opened…and drunk??).  Maybe she has been privately drinking for years but recently became so depressed that she tried to end it all and failed.  Max and Shamgar (yes that is his real name—Judges 3:31—look it up) would be a difficult duo with which to create compassionate community—especially when they dethroned 'the Queen' (Molly's former--and maybe current--view of herself) from her loft—and forced her to hang out in the plastic doghouse on the ground.  Maybe Molly has been depressed for years and was really crying out for help in the only way she knew how—self-destruction. 

Or maybe, and here’s my other theory, as she seems to be as spry as a spring chicken lately, maybe she has been secretly plotting her permanent import into the big house and decided that she would feign death.  She has always ALWAYS wanted to be an indoor cat, and maybe she decided that self-mutilation/starvation/dirtiness would win her the prize she coveted. Maybe. But now that I have discovered her deception and/or substance abuse/dependence, I am watching her closely and have installed a hidden camera in the mud room to track her movements. So far, so good.  I also put the inhalants out of reach.  She does, however, seem to sneak around at night.  I hear her little toenails click-clicking on the hardwood while I sleep and wonder what she is up to and why she has the need to traverse the entire house and why she thinks it is a good idea to use Cole's Witte Travel bag as a porta-potty or Shay's pillow as a slobber distribution site.

Regardless of the method of her madness, I do believe Molly thinks that she has won.  She, a former "Outside Cat" has now achieved the coveted  status of "Indoor Pet"; she has pushed her boundaries, pulled out all the stops, and humiliated herself to the point of being distasteful. And, though I think she is sober now, I've been thinking of signing her up for AA just to keep her out of trouble...and out of the house...which is where she will be again when the weather gets warm...except she doesn't know that...and I'm not about to tell her for fear she will again fall into patterns of self-loathing.

It's not sayonara yet for Mol; she has personally checked herself out of hospice and into happiness. It's a (temporary) dream come true!

Long live the Queen!

Now if I could just teach her to use a hankie.



For more adventures with Molly, check out a few more of her imperfections here and see pictures of her modestly bathing (she actually does this??) here.

Surrender

I complain.

Really.  It's a problem.

I complain when my kids don't load their dishes into the dishwasher.  I complain when they load them into the dishwasher but don't do it with the Tetris-like exactness that I require.  I complain that something is wrong with the scale when it shows me numbers I don't like.  I complain when I am dieting so I can like those numbers better. I complain when I have to do burpees at boot camp.  I complain when I sleep in and miss boot camp.  I complain about my job.  I complained about not having a job before I had one.

Seriously.  Can I not be content?

I can, but I have to choose it.  And to choose contentment, I have to forget myself. And live as Jesus lived,
Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! (Phil 2:6-8)

I complain because I think too much of myself.  But Jesus didn't do this; even though He was God, he choose to live in the skin of a man and be a servant to those who rejected Him.  He was silent when He could have been defensive.  He was soft when he could have been harsh.  He was obedient when it wasn't appealing.  He choose death so we could live.

Jesus had every right to complain that this world was full of darkness, that these people were ungrateful, that these religious folk wrongly portrayed Him, that He had to do what was hard.

But He didn't complain because He was confident in God's will for His life.  He didn't complain because The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word (Hebrews 1:3).  God doesn't complain, thus Jesus is a non-complainer; He is an exact representation of His Father.  I, too, am supposed to be a representation of my Father, so why am I complaining?  Because I haven't fully surrendered my will to Him.  Because sometimes I think my life is too hard.  Because I am lazy and habits are hard to change.

So, what will I do about my complaining habit?  

1.  I will purpose to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5)

2.  I will remember that I am to be about God's glory and not my own because He must become greater; I must become less (John 3:30).

3.  I will memorize verses like this to help me:  Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation (Phil. 2:14-15)

4.  And I will recall Who I am to be reflecting; We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18).

Any maybe, by God's grace and with His help (and yours, please ask me how I'm doing), I will be non-complainer by February 2015 and a more accurate picture of my Father.  

It's a choice.

I surrender.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. 

1 Timothy 6:6

Working for His Glory

Lest you think that I am promoting antinomianism (lawlessness; living in such a way as to imply that the Law is bad and/or useless) because of my last post, and lest I fall off the wagon of discipline because I am immersed in the luxury of God’s grace, I write today’s post to help myself understand the reason I still must strive for growth in my Christian walk.  Here goes…

So, if I am covered in Christ’s Robe of Righteousness, and if God sees me as perfect and forgiven and clean, and if I can do nothing to earn or reject His love, then why should I do anything at all?  If I suffer no condemnation in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1) and my un-payable debt has been canceled by Jesus’ death on the cross (Colossians 2:14), should I still be required to work out my salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12)? 

The unequivocal answer is “YES!”  Here’s why:

Let’s go back to Romans 5:20-21 where Paul says, “But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” and 6:1-2, “What shall we say then?  Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?  By no means!  We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?”  So, it’s obvious in scripture that:

1) God’s grace is sufficient for all of our sin;

2) In our old life without Christ, sin reigned, but in our newfound life in Christ, (because of grace) righteousness is to reign;

3) Righteousness through Jesus brings eternal life;

4) When we accept Jesus as our Savior, we are to “die to sin”;

3) We shouldn’t abuse grace by choosing to live in sin (live for ourselves alone) when we have been freed from it.

That brings us back to our main point:  We have been made righteous through Christ and we are to live in a different way because of this.  How does this look? I think it spurs us to action.  I think it looks like this:

In the Westminster Catechism, the question of man’s purpose is addressed in question 1:

Question 1. What is the chief end of man?
Answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

If our purpose in life is to glorify God, how are we to do that?  With good works!  The Westminster also explains this reality:

Question 16.2  Are good works necessary in the life of a Christian?

Answer:  These good works, done in obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith; and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the Gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God, whose workmanship they are, created in Christ Jesus thereunto, that, having their fruit unto holiness, they may have the end, eternal life.

So this means that the work of God’s free grace enables me, and you, to show the expression of my love and obedience to God THROUGH MY GOOD WORKS!  Now these good works SHOULD NOT be confused with justification.  Justification is the work of God’s free grace, and we can do nothing to earn or deserve it.  It is this work of God’s free grace that enables us to express our devotion and our love THROUGH good works.  Good works do not give us salvation, God’s free grace does.

When we bear fruit then (when we practice spiritual disciplines and put them into practice), we glorify God!  Tullian Tchividjian says, in his book, One Way Love that “We read the Bible and pray and go to church and partake of the sacraments, because it is in those places that God reminds us that things between Him and us are forever fixed.  They are the rendezvous points where God declares to us concretely that the debt has been paid, the ledger put away, and everything we need, in Christ we already possess.”

The primary requirement, then, for producing good fruit, is a longing after God…a desire to make His name great.  So, we go about completing these good works (that God prepared in advance for us to do according to Ephesians 2:10) by asking for Him to enable us, by immersing ourselves in Him.  We do NOT succeed and attain victory over sin by the strength of our will alone.  When we do this, we are worshipping our own will power—not the power of Christ.  Our own will power is fallible, but Christ’s power never fails.  Henri Arnold puts it this way, “As long as we think we can save ourselves by our own will power, we will only make the evil in us stronger than ever.”

So, my conclusion (assisted by Richard J. Foster in the book The Spiritual Disciplines) is this,  “The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us…This is the way with the Spiritual Disciplines—they are a way of sowing to the Spirit.  The Disciplines are God’s way of getting us into the ground; they put us where he can work within us and transform us.  By themselves, the Spiritual Disciplines can do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done.  They are God’s means of grace…Spiritual growth is the purpose of the Disciplines.”

There you have it folks, an annotated dissertation on my journey through the question of good works.  Do I need to do them? Yes!  Does my salvation rely on them? No! How do I do them?  Through God’s grace and not my own power!   What is their purpose? To help me to glorify God! 

And that is my chief aim:  To Glorify God and to make Him known.  And it ought to be your aim too, if He has saved you. 

So, first, bask in His grace that requires nothing of you, and then, go make Him known by giving everything in you. 

The Bottom Line: Your works, enabled by Grace, show your love for Him.  And just like you, God longs to be adored. 

Let’s make Him famous, shall we?

 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:16

Inexhaustible Grace

I am convinced that we, as Western Christians, are not enjoying God.  Notice I didn’t say “serving God” or “striving after God” or “sacrificing for God”.  I said “enjoying God”.  And I say this because our western world is driven by performancism, not grace; conditionality, not freedom.  We somehow think (but wouldn’t admit) that we can earn more favor with God by impressing Him with endless work, tireless service, stifling legalism, and adherence to the “rules”. 

(What are the rules you ask?  The rules for me are:  If you study your Bible and write in your journal everyday and pray for all the people in your alphabetized binder, then you will be approved by God… If you read lots of insightful books and write thoughtful blogs and never ever waste your time on things like Facebook or Pinterest, then people will think you are smart and good… If you eat healthy foods and never let yourself eat bad food, and if you work out hard every morning—no slacking—then you will never get sick and be in complete control of your life… If you make long lists, and if you cross most things off those lists by the end of each day, you have been a proper steward of your time and if nothing gets crossed off, you are lazy.  I could go on and on and on.)  My life operates on control.  And my need for control comes from lack of trust.  And my lack of trust steals my joy.

I think I have trouble enjoying God because I don’t fully trust Him.  When I have  rules and boundaries and checklists in place, I can keep a tally of my goodness,  my acceptance, and even my “righteousness”; but, if I have to trust that God believes all those things about me, I start to feel naked without my deeds—even though I am really covered in Christ’s robe of Righteousness.  God sees me as holy, righteous, and good, NOT because of anything I do or achieve, but because I am hidden in Christ.  That is unconditional grace.

Now I am NOT saying deeds are bad.  They aren’t. Ephesians 2:10 makes this clear when it states  “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” So, as Christ-followers—God’s handiwork—we DO have deeds to do, but these deeds are not what makes God love us.  Tullian Tchividjian helped me think through this conundrum in his book, One Way Love.  He says, when talking about Martin Luther, “Luther asserted that our righteousness before God (coram Deo) is received and defined by faith.  Our righteousness before one another (coram mundo), on the other hand, is active and defined by service.  The passive righteousness of faith (vertical righteousness) is what makes us right before God—fully and finally.  The active righteousness of works (horizontal righteousness) serves the well-being of creation and culture by loving and serving our neighbors.  This distinction is so helpful because whenever we discuss Christian growth, the doctrine of sanctification, or the practice of godliness, the insinuation is that MY effort, MY works, MY faith, MY response, and MY obedience keep me in God’s good graces—the more I do “for God” the more He loves me.”

Guess what guys?  God’s love for you is not dependent on what you do; it is dependent on what has already been done.  It has nothing to do with who you are; it has everything to do with Whose you are.  God actually loves us independently of what we can bring to the table.  Hard to believe isn’t it?  He loves us because Christ died for us. 

Period.

There is no way we can pay back what God has done through Jesus.  Sometimes, in our frenzy to serve God and sanctify ourselves, we wish for rules to somehow “pay down” our debt.  It’s no wonder that the Jewish believers wanted to continue following the Law after Jesus came and made it obsolete with His perfect life.  They wanted a measure of their worth to God.  However, “when we understand that everything between God and us has been fully and finally been made right—that Christians lives their lives under a banner that reads, “It is finished”—we necessarily turn away from ourselves and turn toward our neighbors” says Tchividjian, “Forever freed FROM our need to pay God back or secure His love, we are now free TO love and serve others.”

It is because I have started to understand all of these things that I have begun to enjoy God.  I can now bask in His grace to me!  I can extend this grace to others because I no longer have the need to judge them on what they do.  I can simply sit in His presence doing nothing at all and rejoice in His love for me.  I delight in the life-giving freedom I have found in Him—freedom to rest and relax and be spontaneous and child-like—freedom to trust in a grace-filled God.  I am thrilled by the way I can hide in His shadow without doubting that my performance is good enough.  I love being His child because His love is not dependent on me.

His love has no conditions at all.

And His grace is inexhaustible.

Period.

Oh Joy!

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1

Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings

Psalm 17:8

The Gospel of Jesus Christ announces that because Jesus was strong for you, you’re free to be weak.  Because Jesus won for you, you’re free to lose.  Because Jesus was Someone, you’re free to be no one.  Because Jesus was extraordinary, you’re free to be ordinary.  Because Jesus succeeded for you, you’re free to fail.

~From One Way Love by Tullian Tchividjian

The Lake--by Shay

I love it when my kids create special gifts for me at Christmas.  This year, Shay made me a little book about her memories of our times at the lake.  What a blessing it was to me!  I hope you enjoy this memoir as much as I did.

Think of it as my 2014 New Year’s Gift to you!

Click on the first picture to enlarge, and you should be able to view it like a slide show.

Christmas To Not Do List--repost

I've been slacking on the blog front lately, so I thought you might enjoy a re-post of a former Christmas piece.  Actually, I have posted this the last two years to remind myself that Christmas is not about how much I can get done, it is about the birth of a Savior--my Savior.  And that's what I need to be about--not all the business and fervor that can characterize the season. 

Read it and make your own TO NOT DO List.  That way, you can keep Christ--and not craziness--in your Christmas!

Christmas TO NOT DO list

• I will not stress myself out to make Lefse. I will just go to Story City, where all Lefse-makers live, and buy it.
• I will not worry about making the contents of the children’s stockings equal.
• I will not host holiday parties when I don’t enjoy it.
• I will not stay up all hours of the night creating something complex and homemade in my sewing room just so I can say “I made it.”
• I will not force myself to put the decoration boxes in the storage room when no one can see them in the porch.
• I will not feel compelled to write numerous blog posts explaining the true meaning of Christmas.
• I will not write something personal on each and every Christmas card.
• I will not feel compelled to send an extra Christmas card to those people to whom we didn’t send one when I get their card in the mail.
• I will not feel compelled to have homemade peanut butter cookies with Hershey kisses on top in my freezer.
• I will not make a gingerbread house.
• I will not use holiday placemats.
• I will not go out and buy more Christmas paper if ours runs out.  I will just use the ugly peach stuff I bought for the school fundraiser.
• I will not clean my house every Monday if I want to do Christmas stuff.
• I will not force my family to listen to “Read Aloud Family Christmas” every night after dinner.
• I will not grieve that no one in my house wants to do the count-to-Christmas calendar anymore.
• I will not force myself to learn Spanish or learn how to knit.
• I will not get mad at myself if I want to sit in my polka-dotted chair and drink tea and read other people’s blogs.
• I will not force my children or any other member of my family to unnecessarily clean their rooms, or their closets, or the kitchen, or the cat’s house, or the porch, or the garage. Even if I have company coming over who I don’t really need to impress with my immaculate cleanliness anyways.
• Actually, Tess hacked my blog and wrote that last one, but I will abide by it.

Ahhhhh.  I feel so relaxed.  Isn’t Christmas grand?

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 

Luke 2:11

Confessions of a Reformed Feeler: Part 4

In my posts over the last few weeks, I have shared with you the struggles of being a feeler.  I did this so you thinking folk might have some insight to our worlds.  But now, for my final feeler post, I want to tell you why the world needs feelers and why I’m glad God made me one.  Here goes:

It really goes back to Genesis 2, where God created Adam; Adam had just finished naming all the animals that God had created, but found no suitable helper for himself.  Then God created another person—this time, Eve. Eve was perfect for Adam; she was his perfect complement.

       com·ple·ment        

noun   ˈkämpləmənt/

a thing that completes or brings to perfection.

As his complement, Eve completed Adam and made him a more proper reflection of the Father.  God is a multifaceted being and we reflect Him most accurately when we live in community with others in a harmonious way.  As feelers, then, we show a part of the Father that cannot be reflected by our thinking friends.  And when we live with them in understanding and unity, we show humanity a fuller picture of God Himself. 

In a world of thinkers alone, processes would be efficient and logical, but much of the flavor and beauty of life would be missing.  Feelers add color and depth.  Their perspective on God helps us to see Him as Fatherly, compassionate, and approachable.  Many passages in the Bible that show us how God feels.  His great sadness is shown in Hosea 11 when the people He formed reject Him: 

“When Israel was a child, I loved him,

and out of Egypt I called my son.

But the more they were called,

the more they went away from me.

They sacrificed to the Baals

and they burned incense to images.

It was I who taught Ephraim to walk,

taking them by the arms;

but they did not realize

it was I who healed them.

I led them with cords of human kindness,

with ties of love.

To them I was like one who lifts

a little child to the cheek,

and I bent down to feed them.”

God cries when he must punish His people and He says through Jeremiah (14:17):

"Speak this word to them: "'Let my eyes overflow with tears night and day without ceasing; for the Virgin Daughter, my people, has suffered a grievous wound, a crushing blow.

We know that God demonstrates joy because we are told in Nehemiah 8:10 that  

“The joy of the Lord is [our] strength.”

God is a feeler too.  We can see him feeling and thinking throughout the entire Bible. 

We feelers reflect Him most accurately when we:

·      Feel loved by the beauty of a sunset or the remembrance of God’s faithfulness

·      Write a card or say a prayer for a friend because we truly feel their pain

·      Cry when we sense injustice or oppression

·      Love our children powerfully and understand God’s love for us because of this

·      Have joy bubble up in our souls for simple things like fireflies and snowflakes and flannel sheets

·      Have faith in God because we trust Him and we don’t need everything to make sense

·      Feel the nudging of the Holy Spirit and step out of our comfort zone

·      Call our Father “Abba” because we feel His abiding love for us

·      Commit to others, deeply and from the heart, and serve them because we love them.

·      Enjoy relationships and harmony over isolation and productivity

·      Despise conflict and desire peace

·      Include others when we notice them feeling left out

·      Use our idealism to serve God and others despite popular opinion

·      Bring great passion to relationships, projects and performance

·      Use warmth and sweetness to draw others to ourselves and God.

As feelers, we are able to experience some of the deep sadness that God expresses in the Bible.   We can also embrace the palpable joy spoken of so often in the Psalms (although we must be careful not to make OUR joy our only goal).  God has made us just as He wanted—a perfect complement for His thinking children.  When we use these powerful emotions to show what is Good about God and not what is evil about ourselves, we are operating within His original design.  Anytime we do things the way that God wants them done, there is rest—not restlessness—and contentment.

So…feeler rejoice!  God has rescued you from yourself!  And when you give Him all of yourself, He can make you into what He has always intended you to be—completely beautiful—inside and out.  He did this because He loves you.  And you are precious to Him.

Choose Him;

FEEL rightly;

God will be glorified.

But now, this is what the Lord says—
    he who created you, Jacob,
    he who formed you, Israel:
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
    I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
    I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
    they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
    you will not be burned;
    the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the Lord your God,
    the Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I give Egypt for your ransom,
    Cush and Seba in your stead.
Since you are precious and honored in my sight,
    and because I love you,
I will give people in exchange for you,
    nations in exchange for your life.
Do not be afraid, for I am with you;
    I will bring your children from the east
    and gather you from the west.
I will say to the north, ‘Give them up!’
    and to the south, ‘Do not hold them back.’
Bring my sons from afar
    and my daughters from the ends of the earth—
everyone who is called by my name,
    whom I created for my glory,
    whom I formed and made.”

Isaiah 43:1-7